Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more.

It's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right everybody.

Welcome back to the Close it now sales training podcast.

I'm Sam Wakefield, your host and I am so excited today to bring on the.

We've got a guest that is a superstar in the H Vac space.

In the H Vac space.

He is somebody that's kind of been followed him for a long time on social media.

If you're in particularly the H Vac for Life Facebook group, he's definitely an enigma in there.

Famous and infamous at the same time.

He's the big boss at American H Vac.

He is the man with the dedicated plan.

I am so excited to welcome today Mr. Steven Short to the podcast.

Thank you for joining me today, sir.

Sure, you're very welcome.

Thank you for that awesome introduction.

Yep, absolutely.

So I am so curious to talk to you.

You know, one of the things that I obviously in sales training, you know, we teach a lot of times about how to, you know, increase the ticket size and everybody's average ticket and how to sell things for more and what I see you doing on Facebook all the time.

I.

And I haven't been able to decide if you're just in here trolling people to get a rise out of them or if you're, you know, like authentically this is how you do your business.

But everything that I see flies in the face of all of the trainings out there that, you know, kind of teach things that way.

So I would love to hear your philosophy about how you do business.

And you know, the.

We see you comment a lot about, you know, everybody out there.

Don't be meal dicking.

Right.

And so that's, that's almost like your catchphrase at this point and.

Yeah, yeah.

And I love it.

So tell us a little bit about your philosophy and how it's kind of come to be.

All right, well, thank you.

First of all, sometimes I tend to ramble a little bit.

I Express my words better in writing.

So if I start rambling, just cut me off and redirect me with a new question or whatever.

But I tend to have already forgot what you might ask me to the effect of the way people do sales and things like that.

Uh, I've never had any formal, not much formal sales training.

I've been to a few seminars and I watch and I observe people and I, I do recognize that, that there's a certain personality type.

We play well with people who are like us.

We sell to people who think and act and behave like we do.

And, and I'm a person that does not like to be, I guess the strong arm sales technique, the, the, the, you know, I've been known, I've had these, these highly trained salespeople come into my house and present different products.

Siding on my house is a memorable one.

And the guy was very, very high pain, came in, showed me some products, went through the stuff, and he just wanted, he did not want to let me think about it.

He wanted to, he wanted to reply with, with objection after object in solutions.

And I could not get him out of my house.

And it came to a point.

This happened on two occasions.

I had another guy selling me some advertising, attempting to, and I literally had to jump out of my seat and literally, literally physically drive these people.

And one, in one case threw one out of my truck, another one out of my living room because they just would not leave.

I was so flipping angry at the effort that I was having to exert to just get them to leave and let me make the decision in 24 hours.

But my point is I hate salespeople.

I absolutely hate them.

And I, and I, and I, I just don't, you know, I'm highly sensitive to that.

So I don't push people that hard to sell my products.

They either want it or they don't.

I give them a price.

You like it?

I, I, I.

Another catchphrase that every that people have heard is the Doing it for a song.

Doing it for a song.

Absolutely.

Do it for a song.

Either you like, I know my price is good.

If you want it, let's talk about it.

If you want a meal, dick about it.

I ain't got time to talk about it.

Show me your money, let's go.

It's kind of my attitude or I got things to do.

See you later.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I love that.

So when, when you, when you have that conversation with people, it sounds like that, you know, basically it's just really another way of forcing A decision and so you're not going to be chasing them.

No need for follow up.

It's do it or don't.

Right, Right.

Who's.

I don't have time.

I mean, salespeople, that's their job.

If that's your primary job as a salesperson, that's your job.

I, you know, that's a hard job.

I do not.

I mentioned I hate salespeople.

Look, it's not an easy job.

Salespeople, you know, they work hard.

They work as hard as anybody.

You know what I mean?

I don't necessarily hate them.

I just hate the process.

They've got a damn hard job and that's what they got to do.

They're following up that they're doing their job.

I have many, many hats to wear and I just don't have time to play all that, all that many roles.

And so I got to select who's.

Who's, who's worthy of my time as I like to think who is worthy of me investing time on.

No, that makes perfect sense.

So tell us a little bit about your, about your company, how, how long have you been in business and give us the kind of the highlight reel of your story, how you got into H Vac and how you've grown your business.

Thank you.

I shop straight out of High School, 18 years old.

When I was, I graduated high school, I was heavily into drugs and alcohol, mostly alcohol.

And I was struggling in my life, but I was always a good worker.

I was always able to get a job, walk into a place and talk myself into a job.

And I guess I was, I'm all, I'm somewhat of a salesman myself at a deep level because I could always, I could always get people to give me a chance even though, even though I probably didn't deserve a chance.

And I got this job with a, with a company that was very.

They were one of the biggest companies here in Utah county, still are.

And I learned how to do sheet metal work in their shop.

And looking back in hindsight, that was the best thing I ever learned was how to craft metal, sheet metal work and do the ductwork from the point of the shop and carry it into the field and be able to apply that to do an installation and just make my installs look really sharp from a point of the sheet metal aspect.

Sure.

So that really helped me and I worked for many companies for 15 years.

I just made the rounds through many companies and, and then I was able to, I was fortunate enough to my.

I had a brother that helped me financially after 15 years in the trade and after I got cleaned up and away from drugs and alcohol, he helped me get my business going.

And it was in 2003 we started this business and it just went from there.

The first years, the first years of that business was all about new construction work.

I worked hard and long.

For many in the new construction industry, that's some hard work.

That's a hard place to make money.

The 08 crisis, financial crisis bumped me out of the new construction business and kind of forced me more into the retrofit and, and I've never looked back.

I've never, you know, I hardly ever do a new construction project ever anymore.

Once in a great while, 95, 90% of my work went to retrofit replacement.

And it's been, it's been a good thing.

I love it.

I love it.

That's a, that's a great, great history I started.

Actually, it's kind of funny, I started the same thing.

I was help her on the crew in our little tiny Texas town.

And I remember, you know, hammering those plenums together and having the biggest forearm muscles in town because you build those sheet metal hammers, man, that'll, that'll build it to you.

So Also congratulations on 20 years in business this year.

Then if you started in 2003, that's a big milestone.

So yeah, that's definitely a big congrats.

Definitely.

Sounds like you've learned a lot over the years as well.

That's for sure.

Thank you.

I've worked hard and I've learned a lot of things.

I, I feel like I, I get mocked a lot by people in the groups for, you know, being the one man band, Chuck in the truck kind of thing.

Sure.

I think I wear that badge.

Well.

I don't, I'm not.

You know, you, the, the introduction you made of me going into this as a superstar and all that, you know, I recognize that this is just a little two bit company working out of a garage home office, but, but it's a pretty tight ship and I, I do feel that I do well with it.

Very, very, extremely efficient.

I don't even, I'm not, I'm under a million dollars a year.

Big whoop dee doo, right?

But I dare say I'll bet you I eke out more profit out of that revenue than just than anybody else I've ever heard of and know of doing the same amount of business.

You know, that is fantastic too.

And you know, there's nothing wrong with that.

I, I hear so many as, as you can imagine, I've worked with a lot of different companies all across the country and in Canada, and they're all different sizes.

And one of the, you know, I hear so many people talking about when, you know, wanting to grow and wanting to grow fast, and they see all of these companies that, you know, double in size every year for I don't know how many years in a row.

But the missing piece in so many of those is what you just mentioned is the profit.

It's like, this is awesome and it's great that you've grown, but what, you know, what are you taking home at the end of the day and are you happy with where you are?

And so there's no wrong answer.

With the size of an organization, if you, you know, if you're perfectly happy with the size of it and what you're doing and then the net profit you're taking home, you know, it's about being happy in life, right?

That's correct.

That's correct.

That's absolutely correct.

I do not.

We have to be happy.

And anyway, I, My mind is racing looking for, you know, my activities are spent online.

I forgot to answer that question.

What, what is my purpose for doing this?

Trolling.

Am I trolling or am I legit?

It's all of that.

All of the above.

Anyway, I don't know what the point was of driving back on that, but trying to just be happy and have fun and enjoy ourselves.

And guess what?

Guess what?

When you get a lot of, when you get a lot of too much responsibility, too much chaos.

I'm a control freak.

I like order.

I like neatness.

And I don't to so too many employees.

It's just not good for me.

Just not healthy.

I realized about 10 years into operating my business, working only like seven guys, seven employees.

I had it at one point and I just realized that this is not healthy.

This is just too much.

Only seven guys.

I mean, that sounds crazy.

Some of these, some of these companies work up to 10, 20 guys, 30 guys, 50 guys.

I have a brother that built a business and he's got 70 people working for him.

He's built it in the past 10 years or so.

And he's amazing people manager.

He manages people well.

And all of his employees love working there.

And it's a, it's an incredible.

I mean, I marvel at the people that can do that.

My hat is off to them.

Wow, what an incredible feat.

I, you know, I, I tend to mock these big companies sometimes and make fun of them, but, but really.

But really, I know it ain't easy and it takes a real, real, real special person to be able to fill that kind of role.

And, and we have to be honest with ourselves and, and, and be able to evaluate ourselves accurately and know what, what kind of role fits us well, what makes us happy.

And, and I just realized that, that I, I work better with myself, by myself, maybe one or two people around me.

You get too much, too much chaos around me and I'm losing my mind.

Becomes unhealthy, unprofitable and not fun.

Right, Right.

No, I love that.

Yeah.

I think that's one of the biggest things when it comes to just realizing who you are in life is that self awareness, you know, taking radical responsibility for your strengths and weaknesses and then just owning them and being proud of.

Correct.

It could be a cop out.

You know, we have to be careful.

We can, we can own our weaknesses and be proud of them.

And you, you know, I have to be real aware that sometimes we're just copping, just don't want, you know, is that really, is that really true?

Is that really, you know, could I get some education?

Should I do some training?

Could I?

Of course I could if I really wanted to do that.

But we really have to be gut wrenching honest with us, with ourselves and, and really realize.

And I, you know, I, I feel like I have come a long way from my early years in life, living in so much destruction and I've gotten, you know, I am 60 years old, I look pretty good for my age, I feel.

But, but to me, I just realized, I think it don't make sense for me to go back to school at 60 years of age.

You can go to spec school at any time you want, learn as much as you want.

Right?

Well, I'm making a lot of damn money right now for a little guy working out of a truck, in a truck kind of thing.

And I just need to milk this cow for as far as I can get it for the next 10 years that I'm physically able to work.

And that's just what my mind's on, milk and get as much as I can go like until I fall down a flight of stairs and break my leg and can't work.

Then we'll, then we'll look at something.

Else, then reassess something else then.

Man, you know, this is a very refreshing conversation for me.

You know, I spent almost half the day yesterday in interviews with people and you know, we're talking about this organization, you know, has 50 employees and you Know what I heard from him was, man, the, the person he had to become and, and stretch and grow along the way.

He's like, he never realized how hard it was going to be and, which is, you know, perfectly awesome for him.

But I love that you've found a place that you're really comfortable with, that you're happy with.

And yeah, it sounds like you're doing, really doing a, as a service to your customers as well as your employees that stick with you.

I want to circle in.

There was a post you put up the other day that I kind of followed along the timeline when you were talking about, I guess, a new helper arriving on his first day of work.

You know, a smart person would, would arrive 10 minutes early, to be precise, maybe five minutes.

Not bad.

Still cutting it close.

What happened with that helper?

Did he end up showing up on time or did he end up being late?

You know, I wrote another post about that this morning actually, and I'm kind of just observing the timeline, kind of, kind of making a little bit of a joke out of it, trying to be, you know, I'm calling him, I'm referring to him as the Jim Schwartz guy to protect his anonymity.

Right.

And, and mocking my employees and things like that.

And I, I, but, but, but this is not done to be cruel to people.

I mean, if it, if it gets to a point of unhealthy and cruelty, it's like, no, we're not, no, that's not what this is about.

This is about, you know, having a laugh, having some fun, trying to learn from something and grow from it and, and advance towards a better place and just have fun and entertain ourselves.

It's not all about work.

Sure, but, but when, when it comes time to work, prime time hours, it's time to work.

And if you're the, the first day on a job, I know, it just blew my mind that someone would ever show up five minutes late on their interview.

First of all, their interview, then their first day of work.

Five minutes late, that's rolling up to the curb and then another two or three minutes getting out of the truck, finding their phone or whatever, you know, just gathering their, whatever they're doing, getting off the phone and getting in the building.

They're about eight minutes walking in there, pushing 10 minutes late.

I'm just mind boggled that anyone, anyone would do that.

Right, right.

Three days in a row.

He did it.

Three days in a row.

First day of work, second day of work, and all I can think of is, well, at Least the guy's consistent.

At least the guy's consistent.

10 minutes late every day.

So, so we're just trying to work with him and see what if he's going to make it or not.

Today's his third day, and we'll see what happens today, but that's all we can do.

Just.

But I don't put up with a lot.

I, I don't have a lot of patience for people if they're not trying, if they're not paying attention, if they're not showing me effort.

It's like, dismiss them without prejudice is what I like to call it.

I'm an honorary sucker.

And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll quickly turn to, it's time for you to go or we're gonna go.

I mean, my voice will raise and it will get intense and it's time to put up or shut up.

This thing's going to go down.

And, and most people realize pretty quickly that it's just time for them to, to take a walk anywhere besides where I am at, because it's not going good.

And, and we just try to just eliminate it like it's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

If it's not working, it's not worth it.

There's no reason to carry on for weeks and years and months of unhealthy, just misery, just leave.

And that's what I tried to impress upon people when they come.

If it comes to that point, it's not my job to leave.

It's not my job to leave.

Either you gotta tow my mark and live in my world, or if you don't like my world, it's, you're the one that has to leave, not me.

And some people have a real hard time understanding that, you know, there.

It reminds me a lot of the philosophy that I, when my first decade in the industry, I had a mentor that I was working for and with, and he always, he had very similar philosophy.

He was slow to hire, fast to fire, and he would say, I don't, I don't mind at all if somebody makes a mistake as long as they, you know, authentically one, were, you know, sorry that they made the mistake and want to learn from it.

It's like, but if somebody keeps repeating a mistake or they keep, you know, consistently doing something that is against company policy or like the arriving late thing, he's like, there's zero tolerance for that.

So you remind me very much of his philosophy when we, when we first got started.

But it was a lot the same.

You know, it's like if you're, if you're putting in effort, if you're really giving it, you know, giving it a go to learn and to, to do the work properly, I don't mind if mistakes happen.

I'll teach you.

But don't just keep doing them because you're not paying attention.

Right, that's right.

That's right.

I, you know, I'm a very, very impatient person.

But, but I can be extremely patient if someone's putting in the effort and I can see the effort and they're sincere.

When I see mistakes that are dishonored, I call it dishonest mistakes and honest mistakes.

A dishonest mistake is one that's not really mistakes.

You're just deliber.

Deliberately freaking not doing your job right over and over again.

And case in point, I had a, I had a technician that, that considered himself one of the best, one of the very.

And he was a damn good technician.

He relate all loved him.

He was awesome.

He made good money.

I mean, he was incredible.

But he made some really, really sloppy mistakes sometimes.

And when, for instance, miss mischarging credit cards and blew it off like, it was like, well, sorry, it was my big fat thumbs.

I can't help it.

No, you need to pay attention before you submit that charge.

Because when the, when the charge comes across that customer's bank account as $2,490 instead of 249 or whatever, or in other cases, you don't even call the landlord up, the property owner to authorize that repair.

You just want to hurry through it, throw a capacitor on it, and think you're going to fly without an authorization.

And I get a call the next day from the customer who is rightly pissed off that nobody called him to authorize that repair.

And it was just out of laziness and trying to hurry through the job, not doing your job, that this even happened.

And things like that get me real riled up.

And if a person is not being accountable, boy, guess what?

There's going to be steam coming on my ears.

There's going to be fireworks, and it's not going to last very long.

I can imagine.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No, there's zero tolerance for laziness that, especially in our industry.

You know, there's a thousand companies a homeowner can call and, you know, we made the cut.

We need to.

This is a service business.

We need to serve the homeowner.

So tell me a little bit about your.

I Am so intrigued in your history.

It's the Persona that you put online is, you know, that's just one quick glance, but I knew that there was more to you than just what, you know, what we see in the Facebook group.

And so that's why I was so excited to talk to you for this podcast.

But I'm curious about, you know, we've got some mutual friends in the H vac space.

We've got some, you know, we've got like, Joe Chrisra and some of the.

Some of the good trainers out there.

And, you know, just tell me a little bit about what you've done as far as, you know, your own personal growth and somebody doesn't get to where you are and make this, especially the changes from, you know, drug and alcohol abuse and then cleaning your life up without, you know, some sort of core values and just kind of principles in life.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your life philosophy and some of your core values that kind of keep you driven and keep you focused on the right path.

As we've mentioned, there was a lot of drug and alcohol abuse in the beginning years, and I was a.

What they call a.

A drinker that.

A binge drinker.

And so I would drink real hard for, you know, several days in a row.

And then I.

Then I would.

My body would get so sick, and my mind was smart enough to figure out that I needed to clean up for a few days.

And during those few days of being clean, I would work.

I was a really, really good worker.

I mean, I'll tell you, Monday has always been my favorite day of the week because, holy to moly, I'm so sick of that chaotic weekend and all that.

Everything that was going on and being so sick.

Sunday was a sick day of recuperating from all of the partying, and it was so not.

I knew that Monday morning, just come Monday morning, and a good, strong, healthy day's work, I was going to feel better about myself and I was not going to hate myself so much because I felt horrible after those binges.

And I knew that a good, strong few days of work would make me feel better.

And I was just always a really, really hard worker and was able to develop my skills.

And I read a lot of books during those.

Those days.

I've read.

Oh, okay.

Thousands, probably of books.

And I've developed my vocabulary, my communicating skills by the.

The immense amount of reading I've done.

And I think that that reading and my ability to communicate with people in writing has been extremely beneficial with, in my business with, with, with the people I do business with.

I'm able to sit down and formulate these bids and emails and communicate with people in a manner that they appreciate that, that I think a lot of business people struggle with because they don't like that part of the job.

They don't like the, the right.

They don't type as, they're not as fast typus most of most of them.

I type really, really fast and I love to ride.

And I, and I went into a.

After I got sober and clean, I, I quit reading novels for entertainment.

I started reading many of the self help and improvement books 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

And all of those, you know, years and years ago.

I don't read so much anymore, but I read a lot of it and I was able to apply all that stuff to my life and see it working in my life and, and I just started developing those better habits over time and seeing, I was able to see how those better habits and disciplines and staying clean and sober was manifesting itself into my life.

And it just grew and grew and grew and grew and, and, and I feel it still growing.

Even though I'm still just a chuck in a truck work in very small capacity, I feel like I'm still growing incrementally improving, learning to deal with people better, making, you know, my profits are getting higher all the time and I'm just hoping to close this chapter out in the next 10 years or so with enough money to just, just to stop and not worry about how I'm gonna financially survive for the rest of my life and then I'll figure out what I want to do with the next chapter.

Sure, sure.

Oh, I love it.

I think I'm getting close to it.

Man, that is powerful.

You know, you mentioned seven Habits.

That's such a good, such a fantastic book.

One of the things that's a very core principle of this podcast and what I always train, you know, teach people is work to become because sales focus, but work to become someone worth buying from.

And as your personal growth, you know, as that rises through reading, we talk a lot about using, we get so much windshield time in this industry, you know, using your windshield time as education time, listening to audiobooks and podcasts and education, you know, that way we can just, we call it Drive Time University.

We can just up level ourselves by, you know, pulling out those, those nuggets of information and applying them to your life.

Just like you were saying so very.

Very much on the same page about Windshield time.

That's exactly right.

I had a lot of windshield time riding public transportation.

Not really windshield time, but sitting in the back of the bus reading, because I didn't, I, I didn't have a driver's license.

Right.

My driver's license was always revoked for drunk driving.

I spent 10 years, 15 years riding a bus.

And, and that's how I passed my time was reading those books and, and, and, and, and on that note, time management, time management is, is so incredibly important.

You can't drive and read at the same time.

But if you listen to those tapes and things like that, that's a great thing.

I've never done it.

I've never, I've never listened to audiobooks and stuff like that while I'm driving.

But it doing as you say.

And along by extension of that, I guess I just wanted to emphasize just the time management factor.

Being able to have all of your hours of your day invested in something productive and not wasteful.

And I'm talking about 18 hours a day of productivity.

Something that improved your life, not takes away from it.

And, and anyway, that's my point.

24 hours a day, every hour that you're awake making money or improving your life, not wasting your life.

And I guess the boomerang swung a little bit far.

You know, after all those 20 years of lifestyle, of, of living destructively.

And then I realized I had a chance to do something and I could really make something different of my life.

And what currently was the boomerang just went full hill to the extreme, to a fault, the other direction.

And now I'm trying to I guess mon.

Moderate that a little bit back and, and, and I guess try to be a little bit more productive than otherwise.

Could even be working like a madman insanely 24 hours a day like I have done for the past 20 years.

Right, right.

No, I love that.

And it's so powerful.

So it was very clear to me how you manage your time when we started talking to set this up.

Because for all your listeners, Stevie gave me a just a very specific okay, I've got this hour of the day, or we can look at possibly this one hour on the weekend.

And that's the time I have because everything else is filled with, my calendar is filled with all of these productive things.

So he, this man lives exactly what he's talking about.

So that's a nugget for all of you listeners be have a schedule and stick to your schedule.

That rhythm will inconsistency in your life will clearly make help you make progress in what you're doing.

So I would love to know.

Go ahead.

Sorry, I didn't mean.

I was waiting for you to finish.

As well as being able to give people clear answers like I was able to give to you, hey, this is my availability.

This is what I got kind of take it or leave it attitude.

Not that you don't want to be flexible.

Not that we don't want to be flexible for certain people and certain things, we have to be flexible, but at the same time, we have to give people answers.

When we're negotiating with people, when we're.

We see so many contractors out there that they're just, they're.

They can't give people a straight answer.

It's like, when can you show up?

When can you do it?

What could be the price?

And they just fumble and flutter around and nobody could give anybody a straight answer because they don't want to commit to nothing.

That's the reason that is most of them, they can't commit because they're, they're too scared or lazy to commit.

Because, or some of them are not too lazy or scared to commit.

They'll.

They will commit, but then they just won't follow through.

So you really, People really need to be able to organize their, Their, their life in a fashion that they can compartmentalize different activities and commit to things, give people answers.

Because, you know, I meet a lot of great people that, that are just smart, smart people.

You know, I mock my customers a lot.

I do mock my customers.

They're irritating as hell sometimes.

Some of these customers are horrendous.

And, and if you go online and read my post, it seems like I have nothing but bad customers.

No, that I have mostly great customers.

I walked into a property yesterday and these people are just so nice.

These people are just so nice.

They're so gracious, you know, Here, we got some water.

Sorry, we didn't offer you water.

We didn't even think of it yesterday.

We should because it was hot and they want to make sure that, you know, that you can use their bathroom and which one it is and what.

They're just so appreciative.

And those people are the ones that I love to work for and I will do more for them than, than I want to work for those, those kind of people, as opposed to the ones that are whining and compliant about, you know, how long is this going to take, when are you going to get done, and how come your truck has to be in my driveway and how come you left that Door open and my dog's got it, blah, blah, blah, yada yada.

It's two different, completely different types of people.

And.

But if we can learn to recognize the people we want to work with and be straight with them, give.

Give them the benefit of giving them a straight answer, and they're smart, savvy people out there that recognize other people that are able to serve them and serve them well and for a price, that is quite remarkable.

Doing it for a song, as we say.

And I thoroughly enjoy, you know, working for the people that recognize that appreciate it and are gracious about it.

It's really, it's really what, it's really what life is about, I think, is serving other people.

But we have to serve the right people.

It has to be.

We have to serve the right kind of people.

Otherwise it's just chaos and misery.

Oh, my gosh, you got it.

That's the two major points there I love so much.

The.

Our society is so trained to be indecisive and not commit.

So I appreciate you bringing that point up because that's one of the things that, I mean, when I'm, When I'm talking, especially when I have new sales people that I'm.

I'm training so many times their, Their language, their speech patterns, just the words they use are so indecisive.

Maybe when they're start trying to talk to a homeowner, they're like, well, maybe we can do this.

It might possibly fix the problem.

I think it's going to work.

And I'm like, stop saying these words.

Yeah, about.

I'll call you back.

Yeah, I love.

I'll call you.

Well, when will you call me back?

What day?

Within an hour, two hours, next week, next year?

When.

You know what I mean?

And nobody could give you a win.

Yeah, it's like, it's like, okay, well.

And like when we set this up, I had no problem being like, okay, I will call you at exactly 6am in the morning.

And that's the time you gave me.

I will be there.

And we showed up and look, here we are.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I love it.

It's the ability to make a decision and stick to it.

And that, of course, that goes back to integrity, you know, following through with what you actually said you were going to do.

Yep, yep.

For sure.

For sure.

So you mentioned a lot about how your, you know, you know, your day is super full.

18 hours.

I would love to walk us through a day in the life of Stephen Schwartz.

What does that look like?

You know, we talked.

You do coffee in the morning.

What.

How long does your day look like?

How many days a week?

You know, give us kind of a rundown of what that looks like for you.

Sure, you bet.

I go to bed early.

I have a philosophy that one of the reasons I go to bed early is because I'm, I'm such an excitable, intense person that I just exert a lot of energy through my day.

So I'm exhausted.

I'm exhausted early because my mind is just working freaking triple time trying to control everything and all, you know, it's good and it's good and bad habits.

Right.

Our minds are powerful and some of our thinking skills and stuff are good.

Some of them are not so good.

And some of the very same thinking skills habits that we have could be good in some occasions or bad in other areas.

But I'm kind of rambling on that point.

My point is that I'm exhausted at the end of the day from probably overthinking stuff so much.

And so I fall asleep early about 7 o' clock and, and then, which causes me to wake up early about 3 o' clock in the morning.

And I will tell you what, that those morning hours, these morning hours are my absolute favorite time of day.

I can get so much done and I literally get up in the morning, I'm able to do all my invoicing, register equipment, type up the bids I'm doing, answer to emails and as well, as much as I do that, I spend just as much on FaceTime on Facebook doing my, which is just more of a hobby and pastime of making these goalposts and things like that.

And it appears that I spent so much time on, on Facebook, people just wonder how could I get anything done the amount of time I spend on Facebook.

Well, I don't actually spend that much time on it.

I, it's, it's, it's a, it's a two or three hour a day pastime is what it is, which I guess is a lot of time to be wasted.

And I didn't waste it in my early years of my business.

I tell you that I didn't even have a Facebook account.

I don't have it on my phone or anything like that.

And so when I go out in the, in the, in the field in the daytime, I'm completely focused from those seven hours.

Here we are at six, almost seven o' clock now.

I've been up since three o' clock today and I've been equally focused on work.

Equal amount of Work, just my pastime of Facebooking.

Well, I've got, you know what, an hour and a half on each one.

We're going to go into the field at 7am and I'll be intensely focused on my job out here doing this install for until about 1 o' clock in the afternoon, which doesn't sound like a lot of time to be out in the field.

Work in 7 o' clock in the morning till about 1 o' clock in the afternoon is my general physical work day.

Six hours a day.

It used to be a lot longer when my first 10 years in the new construction days, I was out there 12 hours a day.

I was out there with my tool belt on 12 hours a day.

Thank God I don't have, thank God I don't have to.

Well, I couldn't, you know, 60 years old, I couldn't do it anymore.

I, I realized that.

But of course I'm super, super productive in those six hours and I'm able to clean up, you know, go have dinner and get cleaned up and then do some more activities in the afternoon that, that, such as bidding jobs or I could take a no cool call, do a service call if I wanted or just relax, not do nothing, rest, run around.

I do a lot of picking up my parts in the afternoon hours for my next day's job.

Sure.

Stuff like that.

And I just stay productive.

I just stay productive right up till about, you know, three or four o' clock in the afternoon.

Even though I walked off the actual job site at 1 o', clock, I'm staying productive, preparing for the next day or putting out fires or whatever for a few more hours.

Sure.

And then I, I just wind down and watch the news and, and fall asleep by 7 o' clock at night.

Wow, I love that.

I love that.

That's.

I, I think there's so many people out there when they say that they, they say they work a lot of hours.

But what I think, what the, what you've mastered is understanding the difference between productivity and being busy.

So many people are just busy when they think they're actually doing something productive, but they're not.

There's a lot of time wasting out there.

You know, it's really funny actually.

Hang on, I'm going to find this picture because you mentioned that last night I had a fortune cookie because we had Chinese food and the mine.

It's very timely to what we're talking about right now.

My fortune out of my fortune cookie said killing time murders opportunities.

And I just thought it was so heavy.

And so powerful.

And it very much applies to what we're talking about right now.

Mm.

And so, yeah, you've definitely mastered the difference of being productive versus just being busy.

And.

And it's clear in six, seven hours, you can accomplish.

I guarantee you, most people out there will take home 12 hours to do what you're doing.

And in the amount of time you're doing it in.

That is correct.

And some of it is just the amount of experience I have doing it.

Obviously, I've been doing this a lot longer than most people that.

Still out there doing it.

I'm sure.

You know, some people I've heard been.

I've been mocked for being the guy that's been in this field, out in the field, actually doing the physical work for 40 years.

And I'm still.

How.

How good.

How special am I if I'm still out there wearing that tool belt?

Right.

Well, I.

Some.

I kind of enjoy that part of the work you like, and so.

But it's hard to beat someone, and it's been swinging that hammer for 40 years.

I mean, it's just hard to beat.

It's a.

That's a tough thing to beat someone that's been out there swinging 10 and pulling out furnaces and reinstalling them for 40 years.

That's a. I. I'm pretty quick.

I'm pretty quick at it.

I guess I can imagine.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

There's.

There's nothing wrong with earning the right to relax in the afternoon because you've.

You've mastered your skill to the point that it doesn't take you very long to do it.

So I let those people out there mock you.

They.

The haters, they will never understand.

I'm sure that they are the ones that are killing time, which is also killing opportunities for murdering their opportunities.

And so I. I am on your side here because I've seen both sides all over the country.

I.

You know, people like yourself that are really focused on being efficient and productive.

And I also see the people out there that are doing the opposite.

They, you know, they're on their phone in the middle of the workday, on Facebook or whatever, and every time you turn around, you ask the helper to go grab something out of the truck.

And, you know, they walking so slow because they can't get off the road.

We had to put a policy in place at our company when I was sales manager.

It was like, if we see you on your phone, you get one warning.

The second is you're.

You're going to be asked to leave the job that day until you can.

And then we started having them just check them into a box at the, the office because they just couldn't stay.

It's like, here's your box.

You can get it at lunch and you can get at the end of the day, if you can't, if you get too many warnings, this is, it's going to be there until you can get this under control.

Mm, it's got to be that way.

I mean, how could you, you know, the, the bigger these companies are and the more employees they have, the more difficult it becomes.

Freedom.

Responsibility brings freedom.

As I like to always tell people.

Look, you hate to tell someone that.

Look, you can't look down at your phone if your wife is calling, has a problem and take two minutes to, to, to help your wife know what decision to make or make a decision or whatever.

Understand that you're.

Whatever.

A reasonable two minute, like putting out a fire at home, no big deal.

But when you got 50 people working in the same place and they're all everyone, you got one person showing up five minutes late every day.

Well, that gives another guy the license to show up 10 minutes late and the third guy 15.

And pretty soon it's just.

No, when there's that much, when there's that many people involved, everybody needs to conduct themselves to a higher level of accountability because you're just, you're just leaving this, this new hire.

I've got this.

Consistently showing up 10 minutes late.

I don't care.

I'm just glad he's here.

But If I had 10 or 15 people working for me, guess what?

That can't happen.

That can happen.

If I've got someone that's coming to work and, you know, picking up their phone and taking a five minute phone call twice a day, who the heck cares if they're doing their job?

But guess what?

When you've got multiple people in that organization, guess what?

It just has.

There just has to be rules and everybody has to follow the same rules.

You got it.

You got it.

I love it.

I'm on the same page with you.

This is such a refreshing conversation.

That's a good reminder for all of us to, you know what, like you mentioned, take that responsibility.

Responsibility brings freedom, man.

That is, that's a powerful statement for sure.

So I know that we are.

You gave me a timeline and we're kind of getting close to pushing that limit here a little bit.

So we'll start to land this plane.

Like as I like to say, man, I, I appreciate you Hanging out with me today, this has really been a great conversation.

Any parting thoughts or any words of what you've, You've been in the industry a long, long time.

You've seen a lot of changes over the years.

Any, any words of wisdom or anything you'd like to leave everybody with before we sign off here?

Well, you know, that's a, another thing my mind scrambles because there's so much.

But this new, this new plan we're, we're going into with this new equipment and SEER2.

This industry is getting tough, this changing all the time, as people like to say.

And so if you're not in it for the long haul and want to spend your life in this.

I get a lot of people coming into this trade that feel like.

I get a lot of people applying for a job as an H Vac technician because they think it looks hip, slick and cool to ride around in a nice fancy truck with nice uniforms on and using these fancy tools.

And we're making a ton of money doing a job that does it from, from, from all perspectives of the consumers and society.

It doesn't look like that tough of a job, but guess what?

We.

This H Vac job is a grueling, gut wrenching job.

I don't care if you're a salesman or in the trenches, working it is hard work.

And it's 20, 30, 40 years of grueling hard work.

If you're ever gonna, you're not gonna, you're, you're not gonna make something out of yourself in a few months, you're going to have to be here for a long, long time.

And I'm glad.

I'm about ready to go out of this, this industry.

With the advent of all of this new equipment even getting tougher with the CO2 and everything going on, good luck to everybody dealing with the manufacturers.

And they're continuously faulty equipment that's been built crappier and crappier.

And then you can't get a hold of anybody in the factory to account for these problems in people's homes.

And these people in these, living in these homes spending tens of thousands of dollars for this equipment.

And the stuff falls apart and leaks and have to spend more money on it not lasting.

You know, we used to spend, we used to spend.

We used to buy one furnace in our lifetime.

Our parents bought one, our grandparents bought one automobile in their lifetime.

One refrigerator, one furnace lasted a lifetime.

And then we go into a trend where it lasted 20 or 30 years and it's, it's Getting even worse and Right.

It's, it's, it's, I fear where, where this world is going and how hard it's going to be to continue dealing with consumers and, and prove to them our worth and, and build trust with them because there's so much going on out there that's destroying trust that I'm just, I, I, I, I'm a little bit of a negative person I guess, and a little bit sarcastic on things.

But it's, I think that this, this, this, this, this new era we're going into is going to be a tough era for, for people on the other side of that someone who really wants to be accountable and, and be responsible and work hard.

They're going to really stand out in a pool of, of, of otherwise not so accountable and responsible.

I guess it cuts both way and I'm kind of rambling, but I guess I was trying to make a strong point at the end.

I don't know if I did or not, but I guess that was it.

You do?

You do?

Absolutely, yeah.

In a world where the standards keep dropping, the somebody that decides to commit, stick with it for the long haul and be disciplined and responsible, maybe even easier to stand out because there's so few of us left.

Right, right.

I heard it said in another group, another in the, Anyway, another, a guru had talked about this exact thing.

It's easy to be a winner in today's world.

It's easy to succeed if you just show up, suit up and work hard because nobody else is doing it.

Well, very, very, very few people are doing it or so it's actually, actually a lot of people are doing it.

But sometimes it's hard to see amongst all the people who are not doing it.

You're exactly right.

You're exactly right.

That's why I work personally.

I work hard to get into groups of get around the top achievers, the people that are doing it to, to remind me that you're not, you know, remind and, and I encourage everybody.

For example, there's an event coming up in September in Austin that Victor Ranker is putting on.

It's called the Profit Rocket Growth Summit.

And it's just all of those top people who are doing the work that are disciplined and achieving and striving to be better are going to be coming together at the end of September.

I'm going to be one of the speakers on the, on a panel there.

And you know, finding events like that just to get around people who inspire you and motivate you and keep you disciplined is so important.

That's right.

And Victor Rancour.

I'd like to say something about Vic.

Most people in this industry have heard of Victor Rancour and who's putting on that profit rocket.

I, I come across his post on Facebook when he was, I think before he even started that absolute errand was watching him just break out in his videos and stuff and just watching that guy.

Amazing.

And it's easy to, it's easy to want to hate on a guy like that and be jealous.

And I find myself doing it too.

I just want to critique it and.

But at the same time you have to marvel at it and go, wow, holy, look what that guy's done.

And you want to pick it ap.

You want to pick it apart and, and know if it's real, if it's not, if he's.

You know what I mean?

But proof is kind of in the pudding.

Time will tell.

And he's been doing these profit rockets for three years and apparently they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And so I, you know, when I re actually retire, it sounds insane, but you, like you pointed out, I do things different than people.

I go against the grain and everything like that.

I'm busy.

I don't have, I.

Not that I don't think that profit rocket would be a great place to invest some time and get knowledge and everything like that, but I'm busy.

I got things to do.

I don't sure I got enough work.

I don't need no more work.

I don't.

I'm making enough money.

I'm happy.

But once I retire, once I retire and actually have some time on my ass, you know what?

I think I might be in an entertaining.

A fun thing to do is go down there and attend one of his profit rockets after I've retired and don't need to help, right?

Well, we always need to help.

We always do the alike, but we always need to, we always need to improve and grow.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I love it.

So, man, that is, it is powerful.

It is definitely powerful.

So we're either growing or we're dying.

It's one of the two.

And as long as we focus on growth and learning, then we're constantly moving forward.

Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

I'm going to be very respectful of your time here and it's been a pleasure getting to know you and chatting a little bit and learning about the other side of Stephen Short and American H Vac.

He is the big boss and for everybody listening and man, appreciate it.

So much.

Yep.

Big Boss.

I appreciate it so much.

Big Boss, the man with a dedicated plan.

Thank you.

Yeah, man with a dedicated plan.

So we're going to wrap up like we always do on this episode on this podcast, and for all you listeners out there, go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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